Description
The Levelized Cost of Electricity, Projections, Decadal, US (v1.0) dataset provides county-level projections of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) across the continental United States (CONUS) through 2050. Projections reflect the Mid-Case (Reference) energy future from NREL’s Standard Scenarios 2023, which incorporates expected changes in technology costs, fuel prices, and grid composition. The data offer insight into how regional generation portfolios and electricity affordability may evolve over time under this reference scenario.
Technical Description
The Levelized Cost of Electricity, Projections, Decadal, US (v1.0) dataset integrates county-level LCOE projections from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform, derived from the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) mid-case reference scenario. LCOE values represent the average cost of building and operating a new electricity generation facility over its lifetime, incorporating capital expenditures, operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, and fuel costs.
Projections are available for 2030, 2040, and 2050, aligned with NREL’s Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) 2024 “Moderate” cost projections and EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2023 fuel price assumptions. Distributed PV and distributed wind projections are derived from the Distributed Generation Market Demand Model.
For each county and projection year, LCOE values are provided by generation technology and as an aggregated “average” LCOE across technologies. The aggregated county-level average is calculated as the mean of available technology LCOEs. All costs are expressed in U.S. dollars per megawatt-hour (usd/mwh). The dataset supports spatial and temporal analysis of projected electricity costs across the continental U.S. and is intended to be used in conjunction with the LCOE, Historical, Baseline, US (v1.0) dataset for assessing relative change from 2024 baseline conditions.